Global War

The assassination of Fidel Castro in Cuba has not made Latin America more stable. In fact the entire region is rocked with rebellion. In Nicaragua the Sandinistas are launching a military coup to overthrow the government. The Cubans has also decided to send a message to the U.S. by seizing Guantanamo. In Texas a radical militia called the Defenders of the Texas Revolution are planning on striking out. They mount an invasion of Mexico and destroy an American auto plant that they accuse of stealing American jobs. Now the Mexican government wants revenge and plans to launch its own counter-raid to destroy a factory in the U.S.

Once again a huge cast of characters as they battle these various threats. The Green Beret team has to assassinate the Sandinista coup leader on its own because the forces that were scheduled to arrive have to be diverted to Cuba. I think a lot of planned stuff wasn’t included because of the changing nature of the world after the Soviet’s collapse. The second book was supposed to deal with a U.S./Soviet conflict over Ecuador. There was a chapter at the beginning about a Chinese massacre in Tibet that lead nowhere. In fact there was nothing about the planned Vietnamese/China war or Japanese/American clandestine efforts to overthrow the government from the last book. Nor was there anything about the Middle East and its new Iran-Iraq war. It just mainly concentrated on the three hot spots in this hemisphere. The book once again seems dated except for the U.S. army being deployed to the border to deal with the flood of refugees for Latin America.

In fact I felt the author was just writing to fulfill his obligation to deliver a second book knowing that this series was finished. The book itself is OK if not really standing out in any way. I think it was a victim to the rapidly changing circumstances of the time. The idea behind this series was intriguing just not properly executed. So from a historical perspective it is interesting to read.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

It is the near future and the world is going through a series of geopolitical changes. The Soviet Union has to deal with its various separatist movements. Even with the demise of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO the Russians still have dreams of world revolution. They have several plans to expand their influence and keep their rivals off balance. China is going through serious internal unrest. American and Japanese operatives are smuggling in propaganda to further destabilize the government. The Russians also plan to start a war between Vietnam and China.

In the Middle East they maneuver to gain influence with both Iran and Iraq as the two countries start another war. They also with the help of Iraq are supporting a coup as the government goes through a power struggle after the death of the king. Cuba is actively supporting the Colombian drug cartels as a Green Beret missions finds out. The U.S. wants Castro dead to stop this support. In fact the Soviets also want him dead because his country is costing them billions and they want someone who will reform the economy. All this is told through a vast cast of characters that include a Green Beret major and his Spetsnaz counterpart. A female Air Force pilot who is taken hostage by the hostile coup in Saudi Arabia and an investigative report.

So this was a new series back in the early nineties that had a very ambitious premise. That the near future would see a series of destabilizing changes and various low level armed conflicts around the world. Unfortunately it came out in December 1991 just as the Soviet Union collapses so even as I was reading it back then it seemed dated. I think he did a good job of coming to his hypothesis for the future. Cuba would have been a serious economic drain on the Soviets if they continued on so I could see them wanting to get rid of Castro. The drug trade was a hot topic then and so was a possible civil war in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Also the demise of NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall was a logical speculation.

Of course history came out very differently. So this book can be read as a window into the thinking of the time. The book itself was OK. The story did drag on some places but keeps the reader interested enough to finish the book. This was written by Kevin Randle who has his official military title used to give the series a feel of authenticity. He was an Air Force intelligence officer and before that served as a helicopter pilot in the army during Vietnam. He is a prolific writer who has written such various fiction works in action, science fiction and Vietnam war series including the excellent Vietnam Ground Zero series. His big claim to fame appears to be he is an expert on UFOs and has written many non-fiction books on the subject.